Saturday October 20 (As part of the TAL Festival – Tickets from TAL here): The Happy Prince (film starts at 8.15)
Please note: Tickets are sold by TAL. There may be NO tickets for sale ‘on the door’. At present (Thursday eve) the screening is close to sold out.
UK 2018, 103 minutes, 15 certificate
Directed by Rupert Everett, Starring Rupert Everett, Colin Morgan, Colin Firth, Edwin Thomas, Emily Watson
Oscar Wilde, recently released from prison, retreats in exile to France, eeking out a frugal and grubby existence in Paris with the help of a handful of long-suffering and loyal friends and former lovers, who shield him from public taunts, hand over cash which is promptly spent on boys, drugs and booze, and try to protect Oscar from his worst self-destructive instincts.
He is estranged from his wife, Constance, who prevents him from seeing his sons. His only hope of seeing them again depends on his never again seeing Alfred Lord Douglas – “Bosie” – his erstwhile lover, a manipulative and cruel pretty boy with whom Oscar was infatuated, and whose father initiated a libel case that would lead to Wilde’s social, physical and financial unravelling.
Everett’s film of the closing act of Wilde’s life is defiant, beautiful, angry and heart-breaking, with Everett himself in a career best performance as Oscar: maddening, addicted, determined to yield to any and all temptation, yet a magnificent rake and wit to the last.
This film is being shown in partnership with Thame Arts and Literature Festival. Tickets must be booked direct from TAL at: talfestival.org
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Saturday October 27: Apostasy
